(a) Conventional remote proofing operation—Development of a remote proofing e-service, including but not limited to a remote hardcopy proofing service (“RHCPS”), includes as a core piece the transmission of files between users via the Internet. This characteristic is all but required, since nearly all vendors and customers have access to the Internet and wish to transact proofing business by that medium.
As discussed extensively in the companion patent document (docket 'Z151) of Such, many users will prefer to use private-network application service providers (“ASPs”) instead, for all or part of the transmission route. In the present document, a network ASP is sometimes called a “generally available network” to make clear that this sort of network service is available for hire, i.e. for a fee, to most or all corners in general.
Some net-ASPs may restrict their clientele in one way or another—for instance, to only entities involved in the graphic-arts industry (including customers), or only large businesses, or only entities in certain geographical areas where the related equipment infrastructure is in place. Nevertheless for present purposes these ASPs are regarded as available “generally”, which is to say available with some exceptions.
Accordingly in this document use of a commercial private-net ASP for all or part of the transmission route is treated as an equivalent to, and as a variant of, the more common use of the Internet. Every known commercial RHCPS, and remote soft-proofing service as well, operates through the Internet or a net-ASP equivalent/variant, or in some cases both. For instance this scheme was used in the recently discontinued commercial remote-proofing service known as “Vío”—in which even two users in a single common office exchanged proofing files via the Vío Internet servers.
In Holub '909 it is also speculated that a remote proofing service might operate through a local-area network, (“LAN”—see e.g. column 11, lines 62 and following, and later discussion of FIG. 21B) rather than the Internet or any other wide-area network (“WAN”). It does not appear that Holub's conceptual presentation offers an enabling disclosure of necessary details for actually installing such a service using a LAN.
Study of his drawing and discussions, however, reveals that the envisioned process of establishing network routing is manual and static. In addition, he devotes little attention to the particular characteristics of transmission through the Internet or equivalents/variants.
Furthermore Holub focuses exclusively upon interconnecting all the different “nodes” (participants) through “a” network, i.e. a single, unitary network, and is mainly interested in the colorimetrics and mechanics of inter-calibrating the printer devices at the several nodes. He thus refrains from proposing any specific criteria for his operator's manual configuring of node interconnections.
(b) Limitations in conventional remote proofing services—Many proofing files contain confidential information. Industrial espionage is a reality, making it important to minimize exposure of these files to competitors.
The Internet, however, is notorious for its open, decentralized character—which indeed, was a principal objective of those who conceptualized it at the outset. Anyone who wishes to intercept and eavesdrop on communications through the Internet can easily, and without detection by sender or intended recipient, divert a duplicate copy of any file in transit.
For sophisticated personnel who wish to take the time and trouble to avoid such exposure, strong-key encryption is an excellent preventative. While it cannot absolutely prevent a skilled hacker from gaining access to intelligence in proofing files, it can impose enormous burdens of time (e.g. months or years) and other resources—thereby making such efforts substantially noneconomic.
Encryption, however, even when set up to be performed automatically is often a stumbling block to smooth operations. Different computers, operating systems and personnel have highly varying degrees of success in implementing encryption; and it can be particularly troublesome in a multicornered communication among e.g. The central service, prepress, printshop, graphic artist, soft-proofing ASP and primary customer.
Private-net ASPs, mentioned above, may be somewhat less vulnerable to such interference, but generally speaking the principles of operation are the same. Any customer or illicit tapper on the network can collect all or selected traffic.
In addition some private-network service extends over only part of transmission routes for a particular customer, leaving some segment of an overall route still passing albeit briefly through the Internet—and a chain is still only as strong as the weakest link. For example in a four-cornered collaboration if only one of the participants (e.g. a graphic artist) relies on the Internet, then all of the presumed security enhancement provided by a net-ASP for the other three participants can fail.
Private networks also represent an added expense. This is particularly true for a private net that actually installs a hardware node in a user's facilities rather than relying upon a telephonic or short-Internet-segment intermediary connection. As pointed out above, even an installed hardware node may not wholly prevent intrusion.
In addition to security, another main goal in establishing a fully effective remote proofing service is rapid and reliable transmission. The Internet, and to a much lesser extent private networks, are susceptible to service slowdowns and even stoppages—as well as unreliability in reporting failure. Many factors can trigger such events, ranging from major public emergencies, down through weather-related equipment failure, to regular daily local overloads at routine peak periods (for instance, early evenings).
The Internet technology is particularly efficient and valuable by virtue of its robustness: the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) software are extremely general and extraordinarily fault-tolerant. On the other hand, because the Internet was designed to continue operating even when a particular node or many nodes have failed, such failures often go undetected and uncorrected for extended time periods.
This phenomenon can be particularly troublesome in event of local overloads in the system, when there is no place for incoming packets to go in an overloaded region. In such cases a sending server is expected to retain responsibility for the transmission by continuing to resend until all packets are acknowledged.
If, however, any such server along the way acknowledges what it has received but fails to complete its relay tasks, then packets can be simply lost. Therefore reliance upon the Internet and its equivalents or variants introduces erratic proofing-service behavior as to transmission time, and even complete disappearance of occasional transmissions.
(c) Other known data-transfer technologies—One conventional network structure or mechanism for moving data, namely a LAN, has not generally heretofore been associated with any commercial remote hardcopy proofing service. An exception is Holub's very limited speculation about static, manual routing through a single unitary network as mentioned above.
A LAN is not ordinarily a “generally available” network as previously defined, but rather is usually all owned by a single entity (business, family etc.) and preserved for use by people who are part of that entity. LANs commonly are connected to the Internet or another generally available network, but partly protected—from some more-threatening phenomena on the Internet—by a so-called “firewall”, or equivalent.
A firewall is a system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software, or a combination of both.
Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks—especially intranets—connected to the Internet. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet specified security criteria.
LANs ordinarily do not work on a website model but rather on the model of a single computer that is essentially extended to an intimate cluster of such computers. Therefore the way in which each computer in a LAN gives access to each other computer in the same LAN is typically through the same sort of user interface as employed for access within a single computer.
More specifically, access is commonly either:                via a DOS-like or Unix-like console application requiring syntactically correct command entries; or        via a “Windows® Explorer” graphical user interface, i.e. a graphical tabulation with drag-and-drop capability.In either of these main interface types, the files in all the computers are presented essentially as if they were in a single computer with numerous hard-disc storage devices.        
Commercial proofing-service operations, in contrast, conventionally operate on a website model—in other words, using HTML-driven displays, data-entry options and so forth; and with hyperlinks presented in the now-customary Internet style. Therefore operation of a proofing service over a LAN as such, although probably possible, would be a departure from the prior art.
Another conventional network type is sometimes called an “intranet”. This mechanism or structure encompasses LANs, and in fact may actually include many LANs.
Like a LAN, an intranet is not a “generally available network” but rather usually owned by, and strictly for use of employees in, a single business entity. An intranet also is usually isolated by firewalls from the Internet and other generally available networks.
An intranet is a network based on TCP/IP protocols (an Internet) belonging to an organization, usually a corporation, accessible only by the organization's members, employees, or others with authorization. An intranet's websites look and act just like any other websites, but the firewall surrounding an intranet fends off unauthorized access.
Like the Internet itself, intranets are used to share information. Secure intranets are now the fastest-growing segment of the network field, because they are much less expensive to build and manage than private networks based on proprietary protocols.
An intranet may differ from a LAN by being far greater in scope and geographical extent. For instance an entity may have plural or multiple widely separated facilities, even situated in different cities or on different continents, and these may be interconnected by proprietary (owned or leased) network conduits—whether telephone leaselines or optical fibers—to form an intranet.
Such an intranet is typically set up with its own internal e-mail system, and with practically any features that the owner entity has its technicians build in; however, by far the most popular way to configure an intranet is through use of the same TCP/IP models used in the Internet. As noted earlier, intranets have not previously been associated with operation of a remote hardcopy proofing service, but it is probably very common for one or another participant in such a proofing service to be operating within an intranet.
Certain other observations regarding conventional use of an intranet are regarded as insights of the present inventors, rather than being generally recognized; and hence are not presented here. They are considered part of the inventive act and appear in the following section of this document.
(d) Conclusion—The foregoing discussion shows that problems of security, transmission time and reliability continue to impede achievement of uniformly excellent proofing-service operations. Therefore important aspects of the technology and business practices used in the field of the invention remain amenable to useful refinement.